Sunday, July 10, 2016

Summer Go Time!! July 10th, 2016

This week has been hot!  Wednesday to Friday we had temperatures in the lower 30s with one of those days having a humidex of up to 40 Celsius!  We have also been in a drought for over a month now.  Relief finally came in the early hours of July 8th with a whole inch of rain.  We are pretty sure our water bill will be higher this period.

With the constant sunshine and watering our crops are really starting to grow now.  In the greenhouse our pepper plants have got their first flowers, we are beginning to harvest the first of our zucchini, and our raspberries and brambles are at the peak.

Peppers plants in greenhouse

Raspberries

Brambles

Strawberries were done back on June 26th.  We followed our last pick with rejuvenating the plants by cutting them back to just above the crown. 

Rejuvenating the strawberries.

After the rain this last Thursday, the Japanese Beetles decided to show up.  We saw our first few on Friday and by the next day there were very noticeable.  They love feeding on the leaves of raspberries, beans and cherry trees.  It is time to hang our pheromone traps. The beetles will fly towards the trap and fall into a bag that they can't climb out of.  Guaranteed the bag will be full before we know it.

Two Japanese Beetles on a cherry leaf.  Before flipping the leaf over there were 5 clinging onto to this single leaf.

Our pond has attracted quite a bit of wildlife in the form of insects.  This includes Water Boatman, Whirligig Beetles and various species of dragonflies and damselflies including Common White Tail, Common Green Darner and Eastern Forktail to name a few.  Herptiles include our toads, and the odd Green Frog and Leopard Frog.  We also have baby fish as well in the pond! So far our pond seems to be a success in creating our own little ecosystem.


Some sad news unfortunately this week.  We haven't seen our cat, Stoner in over a week now.  He is a male cat so he does tend to wander.  

Missing: Male Cat. Long Hair, Goes by the name of Stoner, or "The Stone"

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